The present invention relates to managing an output voltage of wide output range LED drivers. Circuits disclosed herein may prevent transient currents from damaging LED arrays connected thereto. Among other implementations, the present invention may protect LED loads from transient currents when using a wide output range LED driver for LED array lighting fixtures. Among the examples described below, the LED driver may control a voltage at the LED such that the LED output is adjusted and any transient current is prevented when a condition occurs that would otherwise cause a transient current at the LED load. Such conditions include loose LED connections (i.e., no loading on the LED driver), AC Mains interruption, hot-swaps, among other possibilities.
Complex, costly, and inefficient analog circuits, requiring a significant number of components, are currently used to manage output voltage and suppress transient currents on LEDs. However, the circuits and methods described herein eliminate the need to rely on dedicated, complicated analog circuits. Designs disclosed herein utilize less components, such as by sharing pins with the microcontroller, and are more cost efficient. Also, rather than having to design unique products for various narrow ranges of applicable LED loads, the LED driver circuits and related methods disclosed herein may be utilized on an array of capacities, thus eliminating the need of an unnecessary proliferation of stock-keeping units (SKUs).
As such, the present invention fulfills a need by more efficiently and cost-effectively protecting LED loads. Moreover, the invention described herein provides a way of managing a wide range LED driver such that the driver can take any LED array within a broad, specified range (as opposed to more specific driver ranges), and connect the LED load to the output of the driver without danger of damaging the LED array due to transient current.